Share New York Panelists

Cameron Tonkinwise, Ph.D is theChair of Design Thinking and Sustainability at Parsons, the New School of Design. His research and professional activities integrate the philosophy of design with a concern for sustainability. His work focuses on the design of commercial and nonmarket systems for shared product use, exploring how the emerging discipline of service design might facilitate the development of less-material-dependent economies. In his current research, Mr. Tonkinwise is investigating perceptions of convenience and autonomy in shifts from “ownership” to “usership.”

Milicent Johnson is Shareable Magazine's Community Builder. Milicent is an idealistic realist with a passion for learning, laughing, and building community. Her passion for empowering communities to find meaningful solutions and resilience led her to work on asset building and economic development through education, policy, research, and community organizing with a focus on low income communities and communities of color. She is thankful that the Shareable community has confirmed her belief that all we could possibly want or need is actually within ourselves, our communities, and the people around us. In her role at Shareable, Milicent's main objective is to network shareable urban designers, businesses, alternative economy and thought leaders with communities that are ripe for implementing sharing practices in order to strengthen the sharing movement.

Conversation 1: Share or Die, Youth In Recession

Willie Osterweil is a writer, organizer, punk singer, andAuthor of Revolution in Spain. When he's not overseas taking part in revolutions, Willie edits the A/V section for The New Inquiry and fronts the band Vulture Shit. He is based in Brooklyn, NY.

Drew Little is a Social Entrepreneur, Economic Activist, Founder of The Illuminated Ventures Project (The IllVP) and author of How Gen Y Can Create its Own Stimulus Package. Drew is on a mission to help end youth poverty, promote diversity, and provide an outlet for the youth to pursue their passions via the World Wide Web. He developed an evolutionary economic theory called Producism, which is based on Collective Economic Empowerment via the web. His mission is to inspire, inform, and invest in under-served and under-represented youth in the areas of New Media and Internet Technology to help level economic self-sufficiency in the United States, and to diversify the ideas, opinions, and opportunities in the New Media landscape.

Jenna Brager is theauthor of Who Needs an Ivory Tower?And creator of The Post College Flow Chart of Misery and Pain. Jenna holds a B.A. in American Studies and a certificate in LGBT Studies from the University of Maryland College Park. She is currently living in Washington, D.C., where she draws comics, makes zines and writes letters to pen pals. See more of her work at sassyfrasscircus.com or her weekly webcomic at curmudgeoncomic.com.

Eric Meltzeris an entrepreneur living in SF and Beijing. He dropped out of Peking University this year where he was studying synthetic biology to learn interaction design by doing a series of small projects and internships, with a focus on the communities I live in (Dongcheng District in Beijing, and SOMA in SF.)

Malcolm Harris is a writer based in Brooklyn, NY and the Life/Art channel editor at Shareable. His work has been featured on Alternet, KQED.org, The Los Angeles Free Press, and The New Inquiry, where he is a contributor. Malcolm also blogs at destructural.

Conversation 2: Pioneering a New Economy

In order to bring ourselves out of recession, we must pioneer a new economy based on sharing, collaboration, localism, and solidarity. Learn how to collaborate from those creating alternative economies and networks of solidarity, and explore how collaboration can be the key to supporting yourself through the process of designing your future.

Matthew O. Brimer is Founding Partner and runs community and partnerships at General Assembly, a campus for technology, design and entrepreneurship in New York City. Prior to GA, Brimer founded and ran a venture-backed location-based social gaming company, consulted on digital strategy for Open Yale Courses, worked for Apple as a campus rep, started a successful online antique furniture business, freelanced in web design for a handful of high-end brands, and organized startup community events in NYC. He holds a BA in Sociology from Yale University.

Lauren Anderson is the Innovation Director for Collaborative Lab, working with organizations to deliver socially game-changing and profitable solutions in the Collaborative Consumption space, named by TIME as one of the "10 Ideas That Will Change The World.". She is a leading source of strategic knowledge for global entrepreneurs, journalists, and venture capitalists who want the latest market insights and best practices to stay ahead of the curve on new goods and services in the market.

Marcos Salazaris the co-founder of Be Social Change, an online/offline platform helping to empower, connect, and organize the world of social change. He is also the co-organizer of Be Social Change New York, a Meetup community of change makers, social entrepreneurs, start-ups, techies, non-profits, educators and overall do and want-to-do gooders focused on fostering social innovation, supporting social entrepreneurship, and creating opportunities to change the world. Marcos is working on a new book about the psychology of social entrepreneurship and Millennials and is a regular speaker on the psychology of life after college, Gen Y, and Millennial topics related to his last book, The Turbulent Twenties Survival Guide. Marcos also owns two clothing companies, is also an elected official in Brooklyn, and loves Fort Greene and New Mexico red and green chile. You can connect with him at www.MarcosSalazar.com or @MarcosSalazar.

Yotam Marom is an Activist, Blogger, and Co-founder of Without Walls. Yotam lives in a collective in Brooklyn, NY, and is the General Secretary of the NY branch of the Organization for a Free Society (OFS). He works in the leadership of the Hashomer Hatzair Youth Movement and teaches high school students through Without Walls, a collective that uses democratic, alternative educational methods to build community and get at issues of race, class, gender, environment, power, and activism. He has studied at the New School for General Studies and McGill University. He has spent time teaching in an Arab school in Barta'a, Israel, and has written on, spoken on, or led workshops on issues such as communalism, education, Israel/Palestine, parecon, gender, sexuality, student activism, and vision and strategy for a new society.

Caroline Wollard is all about mutual aid. As a co-founder of OurGoods.org and Trade School, Caroline connects creative people to trade skills, spaces, and objects. As an organizer of an 8,000 square foot studio space for artists, Caroline tries to keep rent low for 30 artists and designers in Brooklyn, NY. As a core member of SolidarityNYC, a collective committed to grassroots organizing for economic justice, Caroline brings activists and artists together.

Neal Gorenflo is co-founder and publisher of Shareable Magazine. Neal Gorenflo is the co-founder and publisher of Shareable Magazine, a nonprofit online magazine about sharing. As a former market researcher, stock analyst, and Fortune 500 strategist, Neal is perhaps an unlikely voice for sharing. A revelation in 2004 inspired Neal to leave the corporate world to help people share through Internet startups, grassroots organizing, and a circle of friends committed to the common good.

Conversation 3: How did they do it?

Campbell McKeller is the Founder & CEO, LooseCubes,a global workspace sharing community and resource for today’s workforce. Campbell believes “The future is coming. It’s our responsibility to shape it.” In 2009, while working remotely for a private commercial real estate owner/operator in New York City, Campbell became aware of the growing need for affordable productive workspace for mobile workers. She realized there were a lot of other people just like her— independents, entrepreneurs, and business travelers—freed by technology to work anywhere, but lacking a great place to work. Campbell founded Loosecubes to connect professionals with spare desks to other professionals who need workspace. Her vision for the company grew out of her personal experience—as a traveler attempting to execute a Skype conference call in a Starbucks, as an independent worker in need of flexible workspace in New York City, and as an entrepreneur who realized that isolation is a business killer (while interaction is a business booster). Campbell is a graduate of Princeton University and Stanford Graduate School of Business, as well as a former real estate investment banker with Goldman Sachs. She is the descendent of a long line of teachers and is always happy to provide others with a little advice (solicited or not). These days, Campbell spends her time at the Loosecubes Headquarters in Brooklyn, New York, and coworking with other Loosecubers in beautiful work environments around the world.

Mike Karnjanaprakorn, is the Founder of Skillshare, a community marketplace to learn anything from anyone. Skillshare believes that everyone has valuable skills and knowledge to teach and the curiosity to keep learning new things. This means our neighborhoods, communities, and cities are really the world's greatest universities. Skillshare’s platform helps make the exchange of knowledge easy, enriching, and fun. Prior to Skillshare, Michael led the product team at Hot Potato, which was acquired by Facebook. And before that, he developed products and services at Behance. As a philanthropist, Michael was the Co-founder of All Day Buffet and The Feast, which was listed as one of “25 Ways to get Smarter in 2010” by The Daily Beast. In his spare time, he is an avid poker player, NYC foodie, HBO fanatic, and sometimes foursquare mayor of Tacombi. Michael is a graduate of the University of Virginia and VCU Brandcenter.

Erin Barnes is the co-founder and Executive Director of Ioby,an online platform combines the tools of micro-philanthropy, social media, and community organizing toconnect change with resources. Erin is an environmental writer with a background in water management. She worked as a writer on climate change and other pressing environmental issues for high-level U.S. elected officials and others before coming to ioby full time. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Manhattan Land Trust that manages urban community gardens to preserve, improve, and promote community managed open spaces for the benefit of all. While completing her Master of Environmental Management in water science, economics, and policy at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, she was a U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies scholar in Portuguese. She did field research on socio-economic values of water in Goyena, Nicaragua, and the Bolivian and Brazilian Amazon. Her report “Market Values of the Commercial Fishery on the Madeira River: Calculating the Costs of the Santo Antônio and Jirau Dams to Fishermen in Rondônia, Brasil and Pando-Beni, Bolivia” was published in the Tropical Resources Institute Journal in 2007. Erin holds a B.A. in English and American Studies from the University of Virginia. She has lived in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, since 2008.

Ron J. Williams is the CEO & Co-Founder of SnapGoods.com and Knodes, the an online marketplace to borrow or rent gadgets or gear from people nearby. A former rapper and perennial math geek, Brooklyn-born Ron is obsessed with how networks and communities create value for themselves through information and dynamic connections. Ron has a background in strategy, finance and product innovation and loves tackling hard problems. He spends time supporting education-reform through board engagements, fundraising and speaking to students. Ron also loves to speak and write about technology trends and their impact on human behavior; usually over brunch in Brooklyn.

Venessa Miemisis a futurist, researcher, and digital philosopher. She is a director of the Foresight Education and Research Network. She is currently a Research Fellow and Masters in Media Studies candidate at the New School in New York City. The focus of her graduate work is on facilitating trust-building, generative dialogue, and open collaboration in networked environments. Her blog, Emergent by Design, probes the ways social technologies are shaping human behavior, thought processes, and the evolution of consciousness.

Barbara Pantuso is founder and CEO of Hey, Neighbor. After graduating from Cornell University, Barbara was a pastry chef in Italy and then a General Manager of one of the best restaurants in San Francisco. She changed careers to join 415 Productions, an interactive agency where she became Managing Director. Moving to New York, she then launched an interactive division for a health education company called HealthEd. Most recently at frog design, Barbara led innovation programs helping clients to create and launch new products. She has spoken at numerous conferences, won many awards, and is published in several magazines. And she's a fanatical traveler and food lover.

Day 2: Toolkit for Creating Your Future

Shana Dressler is the co-founder of the Social Innovators Collective. She's worked as a multimedia producer and photojournalist on projects spanning several disciplines and continents while consulting for nonprofit arts and media organizations. Inspired by her consultant work with the Peabody award-winning satellite TV station, Link TV, which broadcasts eye-opening documentaries about the problems facing humanity and efforts to address them, Shana sought ways to contribute to featured causes in a meaningful way. Since February 2009, Shana has concentrated on building unique giving communities focused on raising funds and awareness around such issues as human rights, the global water crisis, youth education, women’s leadership and social entrepreneurship. Through her nonprofit organization, the Global Giving Circle, she created opportunities for people of all income levels to support hybrid grassroots social enterprise and philanthropic initiatives focused on poverty alleviation. In December 2009, Shana launched Global Gifts That Matter, an online gift emporium supporting high-impact nonprofits and social enterprises through the sale of gifts and gift donations. In February 2010, she began work on the Global Cocoa Project. Its mission is to support cocoa farmers around the globe by supplying them with not only tools to improve the quality of their cocoa production, but also basic needs for their daily lives.